


Comforts of Companionship

by Merfilly



Series: Avenged, Annealed, and Atoned [5]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 14:37:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinner dates and pizza deliveries as Cap gets to know his biggest fan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comforts of Companionship

Phil Coulson was a lucky man by most standards. He had a career he enjoyed. He had friends. He had survived what should have been a deathblow.

None of it mattered as much to him as this night. As a boy who had grown up idolizing America's greatest hero, he still could not believe that not only did he have access to the revived Captain America, but he was going to dinner with him.

"My bike or your car?" Steve asked once they were in the garage. Phil felt it was entirely unjust to make him choose. Professionally speaking, his car was the correct answer. However, the idea of riding behind Steve on the motorcycle was tempting. Logically, the motorcycle might even prove better at navigating city traffic.

"If you don't mind, your motorcycle?" Phil answered, far more questioning than he usually allowed himself to be.

"Not at all."

Inside his soul, a kid running through the streets with freshly collected trading cards did a back-flip, though Phil never once let on outwardly.

`~`~`~`~`

He was completely uncertain how the topic of conversation had landed on this, but Steve was looking at him with those earnest eyes, face set in concerned lines, and Phil couldn't stop telling him.

"If I'm exhausted, sometimes I can sleep right through. Or if someone is nearby... I think I sleep lightest then anyway, and their reaction to the first twitch nudges me out of it," he was saying as the candles in their patterned jars flickered on the table between their near-empty plates.

"But if you're alone..."

Phil let a small sigh out, then sipped his drink before answering that. "Sweats. Terrors. Shakes? One of the three. It's almost like... I'm having the moment I knew I was dying and all I thought amplified in my head all at once."

Steve frowned a little, then leaned in a little more. "What if there's something more than just human psychology causing that, Phil? You were nearly killed by an alien artifact wielded by an alien entity. And I saw first hand the way it seemed to amplify all the emotions swirling in the room when we were all present."

Phil blinked, thought about it, and then nodded slowly. "Maybe there is something to that." He gave a small smile. "It makes sense." Even if there was no truth to it, it helped Phil to have another possibility to consider.

"Worth looking into. Bruce might be able to isolate any residual energies," Steve pointed out. He then leaned back and finished off his drink, prompting Phil to do the same. They both eyed what was left on their plates, with Steve getting the uncomfortable look of a man who hated to waste food, but neither one had enough to call it a meal for a leftover.

"Let it feed the strays out back," Phil encouraged. "It's not even a midnight snack."

"True," Steve agreed, standing up from the table. He reached for the check ahead of Phil's attempt for it. "Nuh unh, my treat," he said firmly.

"Only if you let me repay you someday," Phil countered, even as he wondered at his temerity.

"Well, since you're the boss now... I can with that." Steve flashed him a grin, before leading the way up to the register by the counter with its plethora of New York-oriented touristy gifts. He nudged Phil, pointing out the small Avengers key-chain picturing... badly... most of the team. "Hey, you're not on there," he whispered as the woman rang them out.

"Shouldn't be."

"I think you should be," Steve told him, leaving Phil both giddy and self-conscious.

`~`~`~`~`

It was five days later before Steve came back over; there had been a small disturbance on the Canadian border that he and Tony had gone to look into. Phil had read the files avidly; there was a growing sense of threat surrounding these mysteriously gifted 'mutants' that were cropping up. The Director had shoved that project, of gathering intelligence about them, under Phil's aegis as well.

However, Steve hadn't come to talk shop, which was very evident by the six-pack and the monstrously huge pizza the man had as he rang the doorbell. "I know you said you'd treat, but there was a fantastic deal I couldn't pass up. It's just too much for one person," Steve told Phil as he answered the door. "Besides, Clint called."

"Did he?" Phil had talked to Natasha the day before. What had she picked up from his voice that had prompted yet another intervention? Granted, Phil did not mind the shape of his distraction; he'd been chewing over the idea of asking Dr. Banner to do some tests.

"Said you were already working too hard and needed to be reminded to leave the work at the office," Steve said blandly.

//Mother hens, the both of them,// passed through Phil's mind, but he just helped get the pizza onto the counter before taking the beers to put in his refrigerator.

`~`~`~`~`

With the pizza completely destroyed, and five of the six beers already drained, Phil had to admit it was a good night again. Steve was... a change from most of the people Phil dealt with. He was open, honest, and actually friendly without really wanting anything in return.

Now, watching the classic movie station, Phil was feeling a little drowsy, but he didn't want the night to end. If he saw Steve out, the sleepy feeling would either vanish, or he'd fall into waking nightmares again. So he kept focusing on Cary Grant, watching the shenanigans with Katherine Hepburn, and enjoying the laughter it provoked from his boyhood hero.

A sharp nod jerked him awake to the scene in the jail, and he glanced at Steve... to find the man watching him.

"I can go..."

"I'd just be wide awake again," Phil quickly deferred.

Steve frowned. "You need sleep."

"And you don't?" was the first answer Phil found.

Steve drew in a deep breath but before Phil could apologize, Steve answered that. "Still hard to. Slept so long, feel like there's things I should be doing. I need to find out so many things, how they ended, what became of..." He cut himself off.

"Of the people you fought with and for?" Phil gently pressed, feeling as if he were treading deep, dangerous waters suddenly. Steve looked at him, though, all sorrow and lost chances as he nodded. "There are some mysteries there," Phil mentioned. "But you can't run yourself into bad judgment because of it. Sleep, even if you did lose so much time to it, is necessary."

"And yet you have trouble following your own advice," Steve pointed out.

"It will come... in time." Phil then shook his head ruefully.

"Maybe." Steve turned his attention back to the television, and so did Phil.

`~`~`~`~`

The noises of slapstick comedy brought Phil up out of a solid, if uncomfortable sleep. A glance at the clock told him it was nearer to early in the morning than late at night while Laurel and Hardy goofed off on his screen.

In its glow, Steve was sleeping, head canted back on the sofa's corner, body angled out along it to where his calf was just against Phil's knee. For an instant, Phil had no idea what to do, because Captain America was asleep on his couch.

Then, with a careful settling of his body so his head was more on the back of the sofa, Phil let himself go back to sleep. Nothing could tear apart the peace that came with having his hero right there.


End file.
